


Spring 2016 Angstmas Collection

by PineWreaths



Series: Angstmas [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Everything Stays, F/F, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-06-02 18:39:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6577957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PineWreaths/pseuds/PineWreaths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of various prompt-based stories, all of them angsty and in no particular chronological/relational order. The tags refer to at least one story in the collection containing that subject. Prompts are listed at the end of their respective chapters to avoid spoilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Baby Steps

Green treetops, rustling slightly in the breeze, part from a gust of wind to reveal a clearing.

The wind whistling melds with the distant whine of sirens, howling on the wind. That howling melds with a cry of pain, the broken bones and bloody vision nothing compared to the tenor of fear running through it. It’s a cry seldom heard, one shrill and echoing and punching to the most basal level of a mind.

It’s the cry of the unknown, of utter loss and loneliness and uncertainty, the one a babe releases in the moments before they are wrapped in a mother’s loving grasp for the first time.

It’s the cry a mother lets loose for their child when they consign them to the ground, months and years and decades before they should have ever become so still.

It’s the cry a sister releases for her brother, her rain-spattered hair plastered to her face and forming the appearance of cracks that mirror her heart, her hopes, and her dreams, as she sees the form of her brother, his still body warped and twisted into shapes no human form should or could ever safely take.

As the cry fades, [the faint tinkling of a ukulele](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DpozDLjFUVbM&t=MTVlN2E2YzU5YTUwOWIyYTYxZDY4NTBjNTM5ZTVhOWEwMmE5ZDgzOSxIYktXUXQ3dQ%3D%3D) from a cracked and broken radio filters out, the notes ceasing in a sputter of static as water and damage overcome the electronics and leave the clearing silent, save for the howling.

 

* * *

 

“Everything stays, Right where you left it.”

Mabel’s voice filled the van, Dipper’s stoic composure breaking as she elbowed him and sang along to the song on the radio. It was a brand-new CD she had bought specifically for the road-trip, and the song had been on repeat so many times Dipper can and did sing along.

That was hours ago now, though, and instead he had his nose planted in one of his journals. She could tell he was trying to ignore her and focus on studying his notes, but Mabel had other plans.

With a mischievous grin, she leaned over in her seat, straining the seat belt to plant a wet smacking smooch on his cheek.

He rolled his eyes, going back to his book with a grin as she continued singing along with the merry ukulele, the rain adding an intermittent staccato accent to the song as the car wound through the pine trees.

 

* * *

 

“Everything stays, but it still changes -”

Dipper let out a groan, and Mabel quickly snapped shut the music player, ignoring how the action stung her numerous bandaged and tender fingers. This was the second week following the surgery, the one that even the doctors weren’t sure would restore everything he’d lost.

She’d grown to hate the smell of the hospital, the antiseptic stench of the bandages that coated most of her brother’s body below his armpits. Some were from the surgery, some from the crash, but all of them reminders, little white cuts in her mind, messages in unseen ink reminding her of what she did, and what she almost did.

Mabel grabbed the walker, and slowly helped Dipper swing his legs over the edge of the bed. The plastic-coated sheets crinkled, and Dipper hissed in pain as his swollen feet took some of the weight of his body. She kept one hand on his back, smiling encouragement as he made the ten steps forward and ten steps back, from the door to his bed, just as the therapist had shown him. He finished the lap, panting with effort as he reached the bed and leaned against it for support.

Mabel caught the off-balance walker before it clattered to the floor, and kissed him on the side of his forehead that didn’t have the trio of butterfly bandages criss-crossing the gash.

“You did really good today, brobro. Feeling better than yesterday?”

He looked up, barely meeting her eye before letting out a terse “Sure. Thanks Mabes.”

As she had in the days before, she told herself _He’s in pain. He still loves you, but the pain is making it hard for him to be nice and loving. He still loves you._

Somehow, with no other urging or words on his parts, she saw how his eyes slid away from her and towards the window, and believed herself a little less than she had yesterday.

 

* * *

 

“Ever so slightly, daily and nightly-”

Mabel’s singing cut off with a squeal as Dipper leaned over and gave her a wet, breathy kiss on her ear. She turned to catch his mouth in the kiss, her eyes closing as they always did with a deep kiss like this before Dipper pulled away. She could tell he was smiling, and she sighed, slouching a little in the seat as she let the happy warmth his kisses always gave her flow through her.

Moments like this were ones she treasured, and made sure to remember every time they occurred. They could never tell their friends, their families, anyone else at all, and so every kiss between another couple in public was a bitter reminder of how they were forbidden from doing the same. So instead, she made sure the comparatively-fewer loving kisses they had were inscribed into the memory of her-

_“Mabel, look out!”_

Her eyes snapped forward to see the deer, the eyes shining green fire back from the headlights impossibly lose. Her arms jerked, spinning the wheel and her head tracked the deer’s eyes, meeting them as it passed by her side window, as her inner ear sent the first tingling sensation of off-balance sensations, the ones you always felt a split-second before the chair fell from under you.

Then the van spun, and the world became noise and wood and steel and pain.

 

* * *

 

He was looking out the window again, his arms trying to hide how much he was leaning on the cane. Mabel said nothing, waiting for his response, as he watched the window. Outside, the cold autumn rain spattered against the glass, mottling the grey sky outside.

The view wasn’t anything memorable, looking out over the parking lot of the recovery wing of the hospital, a stand of trees in a tiny island of grass before the roads and accompanying businesses across those roads marked a different shade of mostly-grey from the skies above.

“I think…”

She held her breath as he spoke, his voice starting soft before becoming stronger.

“I think I want to take Soos’ offer. I’ll…I’ll be heading there next weekend, after they finish the last of the discharge paperwork.”

Her lungs still held tight, waiting for the other shoe to drop, the one she’d been avoiding asking and thinking and obsessing about every waking moment. The one she’d been so focused on that her grades had dropped like plummeting stones.

The one she knew she deserved, no matter how much she wished she could have taken the moment back, the moment she wished she could have focused on reality instead of basking in the dream-land she knew she rested in all-too-often.

_And the last time you closed your eyes and went to your happy dreamland, you almost lost everything you cared about._

“And…”

He turned, and his eyes, the saddened wrinkles near the edges, crows feet earned in seconds, accompanied by white scars across eyebrows and shattering the constellation that was his namesake.

“And I’m going to be going back alone, Mabel.”

She sighed, releasing the breath. She could already feel the tears, no matter how she’d prepared for this moment, known on some level it was coming, known why it was coming.

All that didn’t mean the tears stopped, but she at least nodded. Dipper bit his lip, and Mabel thought she saw his eyes shine in the fluorescent light before he turned back to the window.

“I’m sorry, Mabes.”

She didn’t reply, but left the note she’d written last week, when she’d first heard about Soos’ email to her brother. A tear dripped unbidden from a curl that had stuck to her face, smearing the ink on his name on the envelope as she hurriedly wiped it away, before placing it on his pillow and exiting the door.

She didn’t look back as she left, pausing to only say “I…Sorry, Dip. For…for everything.” Then she strode out, promising herself she would make it past the strangers all around her, to the safe cocoon of the elevator before she let the sobs break forth.

Above the clutter of the running girl, the dinging bell of the elevator, and the dozens of voices of nurses and patients, the faint music filtered in through the intercom, the last notes of the ukulele fading as the song came to an end. As the lost sister leaned against the wall of the elevator, feeling her shoulders break and shake under the weight of realization as the mask she had built fell away, the last words of the tune echoed in the metal box as the doors sealed shut.

“In little ways, when everything stays.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From noneatnonedotcom: "Baby steps: Dipper is in a car crash. Mabel was driving. Now he may never walk again."


	2. Doubts

A single sentence their mom had said at dinner had been the trigger.

“Honey, why aren’t you using your fork anymore?”

He hadn’t mentioned the events of that summer a few years back, couldn’t tell their parents what they had encountered, what had happened, and what they had overcome. They would have thought them insane, and sometimes even Dipper agreed with their imaginary opinion. They had discovered cryptids and more, and fought for the very stability of reality, but trying to pin down the physical evidence for that was harder with each passing year. Outside of their memories of Weirdmageddon and the events leading up to it, both the new town policies as well as the simple decay of Bill’s magics had meant his mark had faded.

Mostly faded. Some scars still felt fresh. Case in point: forks.

Dipper had used them less and less since that summer, as unexpected twitches and twinges of pain along his arm served as phantom reminders of the abuse he had suffered at the hands of his body-napper. Ford had helped diagnose and repair the damaged tendons, damage Dipper wasn’t even aware of until his Grunkle had commented on his stiff and sore hand when they came to the Shack during holiday break that following winter.

But even after getting his full range of motion back, he had just subconsciously avoided them, using spoons and knives instead and eating little, if at all, when the only utensil option was a tined one.

As he sat back on his bed, his head mashed into his pillow, he was somewhat shocked it had taken this long to notice. Dipper realized their mom had probably noticed earlier and had her suspicions, and only spoken on them tonight, but the look Mabel gave him across the table in the split second before her ask of mild indifference resumed, he realized that she knew, had noticed and known far earlier.

She was worried for _him,_ worried that he would have to abandon the relative mental safety and comfort he’d found by eschewing forks, and instead feel the burning spikes of pain along his arm again. She had shrugged, her voice sounding perfectly honest and nonchalant as she said “Well, I know he uses them at school fairly often. It’s not like he’s allergic to them after all.”

This had earned a snicker from their dad and a light laugh from their mom and the issue was dropped, the worried quelled even as he saw Mabel’s worried glance she gave him before resuming eating. He had returned her look with a small smile, and saw her reciprocate before chowing down on another enchilada.

Her smiles, her little reassurances and attempts to lift his spirits; Those were just part of the reasons he felt that warm twitch in his chest again, the one he associated with Mabel and knew she felt looking at him.

But as comments do, his mom’s words had started his mind down a winding rabbit-warren of thoughts, worries that were not salved by his memories. Her words had reminded him of something, a little tidbit, a factoid he may well have hidden from himself to avoid running down this chain of thought.

His fears of forks had started around the same time as he first remembered his feelings for Mabel. _That first, all-important summer at Gravity Falls._

He’d always had feelings for her, and what brother wouldn’t feel affection for his sister, or one twin for another, but it never was as intense as all this. _Part of that could just be puberty,_ he thought to try and reassure himself. He had been hitting that magical and terrible stretch of hormones and awkward growth at about that time, and any latent feelings of more than just affection for his sister would naturally have bloomed then, but was it _right_ that he would feel so strongly, so quickly?

He never had a crush before, after puberty, to compare to. He had no other frame of reference to know what he was feeling was appropriate, scaled to the expected affections one might feel at his age at the time. He just didn’t _know._

And all that kept leading back down that ugly trail of tears and tattered memories and self-confidence; All leading back to Bill.

The triangular dream demon exceeded in control and command of memories, of perceptions of reality; After all, he had destroyed Grunkle Stan’s laptop after tricking Dipper into thinking he had no more password entries, and had tricked his sister with the damn reality bubble. She had almost been trapped there, and everything there felt real, felt right, and it was only when they found the threads of inaccuracy in it and pulled hand-in-hand that it unravelled.

But what’s to say that was the only dream Bill disturbed?

Was Dipper’s feelings for Mabel just a dream?

The thought, cropping to the forefront of his worries for the third time tonight, sent a cold shiver down his spine. Were his feelings for Mabel true, or another dream, woven by Bill to fuck with him even more, a parting shot, a final “fuck you” from beyond the oblivion the angular bastard had been consigned to?

Dipper didn’t think everything, all of reality he felt at the moment was Bill’s; After all, the last time he had done that for Mabel, it had been almost easy for the twins to find the cracks, the seams in that artificial  bubble, and escape.

Still, the demon was anything but stupid, and had cunning in spades. He could well have reduced the illusion, from being everything to just being a single set of feelings, hiding how Dipper truly felt about his sister and instead.. _.replacing_ those thoughts with his own woven tapestry of whatever he thought would be the best revenge.

And _Mabel…_

He would have had to do the same thing to her, twisting her mind, layering falsehoods on top of her psyche as well, reciprocating the illusionary feelings Dipper had for her to avoid untangling the web of lies the demon had crafted.

His stomach twisted at the idea of what he felt, what he had done to his _sister_ , and what that would mean if their feelings were both just puppet strings and nothing more. He felt the bile rise in his throat, trying to think how he could apologize for acting on feelings that were never even his. If she could ever even accept his presence again; If not, he could understand, but the thought of being left alone and having to leave this girl, his girlfriend, because she was never interested in anything romantic with her brother.

Dipper felt his hand clench into a fist as he gritted his teeth. Damn it, it was still his sister, if nothing else. He was obligated to _protect_ her, and they were supposed to be able to rely on each other.

Or was she even his twin?…

No. _No_. He had to shake out _those_ thoughts, and remain anchored to whatever had to be true from even before Bill had begun smashing their stable life into splinters.

He took a few long, deep breaths and tried to analyze his thoughts, running through them one more time. Honestly, after the training he had from Stanford, and from how he felt about Mabel even before they arrived, Dipper was fairly sure it was real, that his love for his sister was not put-upon and that her feelings were returned rather than another mask.

It wasn’t certainty, but as best as his gut could figure it was probably a better-than-fifty-fifty-odds, so he would go with that. Continually evaluate the evidence, and revise his opinion in the future if needed, but for now, sleep.

And dream of Mabel and groves of watching birches.

 

* * *

 

Mabel sat back in bed, a smile on her face.

Bill had trapped Dipper in the dream bubble. Again. She could almost laugh, seeing as it was through their combined perseverance last time that they shattered the bubble and escaped to Gravity Falls.

Dipper was obviously distracted and worried at dinner, and while she had thought Bill had been careful to avoid giving her Dippy Fresh 2.0 and included reasonable doubts and flaws, this Dipper was too gloomy to match the remainder of the rest of the dream. 

After all, they had saved reality, her grades had been better than ever, Waddles had babies and she even got to keep one, and their Grunkles were together and happy again. Everyone’s story ended well, every life she had inquired about wrapped up with a neat bow.

 

 _Of course_ it was an illusion.

 

As best as she could figure, it was probably sometime before they left Gravity Falls, after they “defeated” Bill. She didn’t know if he was still around, still trying to take over their reality, but that was a concern for a different day.

But Dipper was in here with her, at least this time. The true deal, the real McCoy, the person she needed and loved and relied on was here with her in this coincidentally-perfect world.

 

Biting her lip, she tried her best to summon a smile. No matter what, they would escape this bubble too. Together.

 

 

They would escape to reality, and leave this final illusion behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt: "Dipper and Mabel debating if Bill was responsible for their feelings for each other."


	3. Negotiations

“God _dammit_ Mr. Pines, I want the truth, you understand? _What do you know about Stanford Pines?”_

The agent accentuated the sentence with a slammed fist on the metal desk, causing it and the lamp to hop and somehow shine even more into Dipper’s eyes. The familiar tremor of fear snaked its way through his gut, just like it had the first time they had knocked on the door. When they had pulled him in for questioning.

When they had discarded his attempts to feign ignorance about Stanley’s false identity and instead hit him with a sheaf of pictures. Literally, as the agent had tossed it at his chest, leaving Dipper to scrabble and fail to catch the folder. Even as he grabbed at the pile that had scattered onto the floor, he could see fleeting images of Stanford, his trenchcoat unmistakeable to Dipper’s eyes.

There were more pictures, images of birth certificates, high school yearbook photos from half a century ago, warrants for a litany of names, all bearing the slightly-varying mugshots of Grunkle Stan’s guileless and put-upon innocence. They even had pictures of Grunkle Ford and Grunkle Stan’s glasses; Dipper hadn’t noticed the difference between them until their last visit to Gravity Falls, but evidently some agent poring over the pictures had noted this months ago.

Dipper still stuck to his guns. Stanford had told him what the portal technology could do in the hands of someone looking to cause violence, and in vague terms had indicated to Dipper just how dangerous the people looking for him could be. He had pledged to his Grunkle then that he would never crack, and Dipper wasn’t planning on breaking that promise anytime soon.

In any case, the interrogator had seemed to grow bored and frustrated with the lack of progress. Dipper had been more than happy to tell them of the supernatural encounters he had experienced in Gravity Falls, and this had the desired effect of further annoying his interrogator. While the last two agents to investigate the town had corroborated Dipper’s story about the walking dead, the Pines twin could tell that this interrogator did not share their fervor, and instead the talk of eye-bats and gnomes seemed to just cause his mouth to freeze into a thin line of frustration.

“Fine. Fine then. If we’re done here, I just have one more little thing?-” he said, looking to Dipper as if asking his permission. A bit taken aback, Dipper shrugged, trying to stamp down the feeling of surging hope that all of this was finally coming to a damn end. He’d learned over the years not to leap at the sight of hope, but instead to make sure it was truly warranted.

“Great.” The interrogator, a short, square man with a face like a piece of cracked leather, went back to his briefcase, and pulled out another photo folder. The others all had more elaborate names on the front, complex codes for routing and sorting between presumable cases and evidence storerooms.

This folder instead just had a single strip of red tape across it, with only a single sharpied word on it and a date from around three months back.

_PINES._

Dipper could feel a little thread of fear at the unknown, but knew the investigators had to be bluffing at this point. They had apparently every scrap of info about Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford that existed before Ford was sucked into another dimension. After the return of the lost twin, however, was another story, and Ford had been exceedingly cautious in the months and years since to avoid making the dual presence overtly known. Surprisingly, it had mostly worked, given that the pictures Dipper had been shown appeared to mostly be limited to something that wouldn’t have felt out of place at a Bigfoot-hunter convention.

The investigator pushed it towards Dipper, and when he made no move to open it, gently flicked open the cover to the first photo on the modest glossy stack.

Dipper felt his mouth run dry.

It was a picture of Dipper and Mabel, obviously from a high-magnification camera, and she had her head on his shoulder and her hand intertwined in his. It was the closeness they avoided in public, the physical intimacy of touch and proximity that they only luxuriated in private, away from prying eyes and questions and the judgement of others.

And yet here it was in front of him, in all it’s 8.5”x11” glory.

“S-so? What’s wrong with holding the hand of my twin?” He cursed the crack and stutter in his voice before he got control of his shock, but whatever damage was done was likely unrecoverable. Dipper was surprised because his nemesis across the table made no reaction besides holding the wide grin he had after opening the cover folder.

The grin faded, and an apologetic-yet-smug frown joined a helpless shrug. “Oh, nothing, Mr. Pines. Lots of twins are close. I mean, that’s what you always tell everyone, right?”

He began flicking over the other images, punctuating his words as he did so.

“You’re.”

Dipper leaned over to kiss her forehead.

“Just.”

Dipper met her mouth in a kiss, one his memory even here and now poked into warm remembrance.

“Normal.”

Dipper’s hand, clearly under her shirt, and her eyes closed as her mouth made that little “o” he loved so much.

_“Siblings.”_

Her shirt was off, and her bra was in one of her hands as Dipper’s mouth had lowered to suck on one of the attending nipples. Her hand was on his thigh, cupping his crotch, and the investigator stood back. Dipper swallowed, glancing at him only to follow his gaze back to the stack.

There were at least another dozen photographs there, and Dipper was fairly sure he knew what they contained.

The man’s voice was low, the false note of willing helpfulness nevertheless sounding like salvation to Dipper’s burning ears.

“Mr. Pines, there are strict laws about this sort of thing. Laws that could see you two separated, likely for the rest of your lives. Laws that could see you put in _prison_ , and never able to talk to her without a half-inch of plexiglass between you two.”

He paused, before adding a note of emphasis. “Laws that could put _Mabel_ in prison.”

Reflexively, Dipper choked out _“Don’t say her name_ ” between gritted teeth. The tone of the interrogator was polite, like he was trying to help Dipper rather than tear him apart, but Dipper knew this was just another tactic to make him break.

The problem was it was _working_. And Dipper could tell the agent knew it too, from the way he moved and spoke.

“But there are other laws too. Laws that are designed to keep people: cities, nations, worlds safe from harm. You told me about Weirdmageddon, of what Bill and the others did. Dipper, surely you don’t think Bill was the only threat from wherever it was that your great-uncle went?”

Dipper’s brow furrowed; He spoke with complete belief, rather than the barely-concealed skepticism from before, and Dipper let out a squeaking groan as he realized that he had been feeding them information they wanted all along.

“Mr Pines, the consequences for letting these laws and regulations be ignored, the threat they pose to our existence and way of life? Those are far more important to my organization than who you love.”

Dipper could feel wet, hot tears at the corner of his eyes. They were tears of shame, of fear, and of frustrated defeat. The investigator’s voice took on a soft note as he continued.

“And from what I’ve seen and how you’ve responded, you love her.”

He straightened, pushing a pad of paper and a pen towards Dipper.

“So do the right thing. For _both_ of you.”

Shoulders shaking, Dipper grabbed the pen with an unsteady hand, and began to write.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt: "The government agents are back and they know about Dipper and Mabel's relationship."


	4. A Family Tradition

Mabel sat on the edge of the bathtub, trying to reduce the wracking sobs as much as possible so her parents and Dipper wouldn’t hear. The fan was humming, a merry buzz that concealed her sniffling and sucking breaths, but every time her eyes wandered upwards, they caught sight of the little white stick on the edge of the counter and another shuddering sob hunched her shoulders again.

_“Mabel, honey, I’m not kidding,” her mother had said. Mabel had laughed a little at what she had said; A stranger had commented on “two sisters” when they saw Mabel and her mom together, and her mom had murmured in an odd voice “Sure hope you never need to hear that.”_

_Mabel’s inquisitive look had prompted a sigh, as she continued. “Mabel, I’m only 32, and you and your brother are just this month turning 16. My mom had me when three weeks before her high school graduation would have been, and her mom, your great-grandmother Florence, was earlier still.” Mabel could see tears of shame in her mother’s eyes, and gave her a quick firm hug despite being surrounded by crowds of people in the mall._

_“Just…just don’t carry on the, heh, the ‘family tradition,’ ok?” Mabel had nodded, swearing solemnly to herself to be careful with her future intimacies._

_That had been nearly half a year ago._

She groaned, more of a whimper than anything else as she took a shuddering breath and leaned back, squinting in the bright lights overhead. Dipper and her had been, well, _intimate,_ for close to a year, and Mabel had done her best to be careful. H _eck, we only have sex for special occasions, and use protection every time!_ Mabel had some issues a few years back when she’d tried the pill, and so they’d resorted to condoms.

She scrunched her eyes shut in frustration.

_Oh fuck._

She remembered how their last birthday Dipper had been a bit too eager to start, and while it felt _mmhmmohverynice,_ she had disentangled herself from him until he went and found a silver wrapper in his sock drawer.

 _That couldn’t have been it, could it?_ She hadn’t paid super-close attention in health class, but something about what she had subconsciously assimilated from those classes years ago was poking her and making worried noises.

There was a knock on the door, and DIpper’s voice snapped her out of her stupor.

“Mabes? Mabes, are you alright?”

She quickly rubbed the tears out of her eyes, snuffed her nose, and went to the door. Opening it a crack revealed Dipper’s worried face, and he murmured “Hey, Mom and Dad are in the living room watching the game. Are you ok? I thought I heard crying, and you’ve been in there a bit longer than norm-”

His voice drifted off as he saw her expression, his face melting to complete concern but then stiffening and going pale when he saw the test on the edge of the sink.

“Is…Is that-?” She nodded, causing Dipper to let out a whoof of air like he’d been punched in the gut.

“Mabes, we can’t-”

“I know-”

“But how do we-”

“I know, Dipper.”

He took a few short, panicked gasps before consciously slowing them, and saying evenly “I-I think I have an idea. Come over to my room after…after you’re done in here, ok?” He ducked a finger under her chin, causing her to meet his loving gaze, and she cracked a little halfhearted smile and nodded.

“Good. I love you, Mabes.”

“Love you too, Dipdop.”

She gently shut the door, before turning to glare at the malignant parallel blue lines on the little white test strip.

_What now?_

 

* * *

 

“What now, Dipper?”

Dipper cursed under his breath, rubbing at red-rimmed eyes as he muttered “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.”

Ahead of them, the Mystery Shack loomed large in the headlights of Dipper’s truck. Equally large was the sign on the door that read _“CLOSED FOR THE SEASON. COME BACK IN, EH, LIKE TWO OR THREE MONTHS DOODS. SOOS OUT!”_

Dipper slumped over the steering wheel, letting out a quiet, frustrated yell. Mabel reached out to rub a hand along his back, subconsciously rubbing the bump on her stomach with her other hand. It wasn’t noticeable with the right clothing choices, and utterly invisible under her trademark bulky sweaters, but Mabel felt like she had a neon strobe light painting a giant target of shame on her stomach at all times.

The twins knew she wouldn’t be able to hide it forever, especially from their parents. Dipper had been the one to concoct the plan, and Mabel had agreed wholeheartedly. They had lied to their parents, telling them they were going to study sessions at friends houses. Then they had dropped off handwritten notes with said friends; short and to the point, and basically to reassure their parents they hadn’t gotten themselves kidnapped or killed.

And then they drove, straight north for almost a day. They were almost at the Oregon border when Mabel’s phone began belting out the Sev’ral Timez ringtone, and Dipper’s BABBA ringtone followed for a few seconds before Mabel reached over and muted them both. She had watched them accumulate one missed call, then two, then four, then ten, until she sleepily turned the phones face-down and caught a few hours of sleep.

Dipper was operating mostly on bottles of Energy Juice and coffee, catching only two hours of sleep in two separate catnaps. Still, Mabel could tell that only part of his jitteriness was from the combination of sleep deprivation and caffeine; the remainder was anxiousness, worry at what awaited them in Gravity Falls.

_Of all the things I had expected, I don’t think we had anticipated this._

Her brother’s head lifted up, and fuzzily he muttered “Do…do you know if Candy or Greta still lives around here?”

Mabel shook her head. Greta had moved in with her new husband in Europe, while Candy was at a technical college up north in Washington. Dipper sighed, and said “What about, hell, Pacifica, maybe?”

Mabel thought for a moment, before saying hesitantly “I _think_ she ended up taking over Preston’s real-estate holdings. Last I heard, her house was on the other end of town, over past the sheriff’s department.” Dipper nodded, before slowly putting the truck into reverse, backing out of the empty lot, and making his way through downtown. The sun had just barely started to turn the morning sky from dark blue to a dirty grey, but the lack of a dawn yet meant the heater in the truck was cooking along to keep them warm.

The twins had left Pacifica on amicable terms, but Mabel always felt a little on edge around her. Pacifica was a dear friend, but she always worried she saw her friend looking at Dipper with more-than-friends in her expression. Dipper, as far as she could tell, never returned the expressions or unspoken affections, but subconsciously Mabel’s demeanor towards the Northwest heir had chilled over the years. She was still in contact with her through Bookface and the like, but hadn’t seen her in person for two or three years; every time they had been in Gravity Falls over the years, their paths had failed to cross and Mabel had made no effort to force a meeting.

_And yet here we are, asking Pacifica for help._

The house of their old friend was magnificent, to say the least, and was large enough it could likely have housed a dozen people instead of just the lone perennial bachelorette. Dipper wheeled the truck into the spacious driveway, before they made their way to the door. Ringing the intercom, and Pacifica’s sleep voice cut through the cold pre-dawn air. _“Huh? Whoozat? What-what do you want?”_

Taking a deep breath, she said “Pacifica, it’s me, Mabel. Dipper and I were…were in a bit of a situation, and we were wondering if we could, uh, crash at your place for the night?”

There was a rustling, and then a far-more-alert reply crackled through. _“Oh, Mabe-Mabel, of course you and Dipper can stay. Give me a minute and I’ll be down to open the door.”_

Mabel took a step back, gave Dipper a small but earnest grin he returned in kind, and they waited. Sure enough, not sixty seconds later and the door was clacked open and Pacifica was ushering them inside. Mabel could feel that old tension exacerbated by Pacifica’s nude form being clearly outlined through the clinging nightdress, but she reminded herself that _After all, beggars can’t be choosers._ Instead, she smiled and said nothing.

Still, after watching her take Dipper’s hand to tug him down the hall to the spare bedroom (one of many, from what Mabel could tell), she couldn’t help but groan quietly to herself.

_What else could go wrong?_

 

* * *

 

“What else could be going wrong for them, Mr and Mrs. Pines?” The sergeant had a voice like rumbling gravel, but she was being patient with the couple. This was probably for the best, as Derek was pacing back and forth while Margaret wrung her hands, her eyes puffy and red but dry for the moment.

She spoke softly, still staring at a patch on the wall near the floor. “Dipper was upset with a class he got a C+ in, and Mabel was worried she wouldn’t be able to afford a concert with some friends. But would they really run away over that?” She turned to look at the detective, pleading, and she gave them a soft smile, smothering the internal urge to snort in annoyance and shake them by the shoulders.

The Pines were attentive parents, and in her experience attentive parents, nine times out of ten, could figure out a fairly-understandable reason why their kids would have up and run away without warning. Instead, she suspected they had some idea, but were reluctant to tell her; it was nothing new, as she’d had experiences with parents of kids who were drug users, drug dealers, petty theft, and on one memorable case, a kidnapping and murder suspect.

Still, her investigation would continue to go nowhere fast without some leads, and the best way to get that was to get the truth out of their parents.

“Listen, I know you’re upset and scared, but the best thing for you to do right now is tell me the truth.” She paused as their attention focused on her, before deliberately enunciating “The whole truth.”

Derek looked at Margaret, and their eyes dropped to the floor. Bingo.

“Well, we, uh, we found a pregnancy test, a used one in the bathroom trash this morning-” _It was positive._ “-and, uh, it was positive.”

She leaned back in her chair, looking up to the lights before rubbing the bridge of her nose. This wasn’t quite as common as the kid who was worried they’d be caught smoking or joyriding, but it was a close runner-up. “So is her current boyfriend in the picture, or…?” She let the sentence hang, and Derek stumbled in to fill the silence.

“N-No, not as such. At least, not that we know of.” _Huh. Now that’s odd._ Typically when the truth had been unveiled in all its ugly glory, the person telling it would undergo almost a transformation; shoulders rolling back, better posture, clearer and firmer voice, and a general slight uptick in attitude.

Instead, the Pines still acted like they’d told her nothing. Meaning there was still something they were leaving out, something important.

_I wonder…_

“So, are the twins fairly close, I assume?” _There._ It was subtle, a brief flicker of movement, but both parent’s eyes had locked on her for a split second in worried surprise.

Margaret’s voice came back, fairly calm and flat in affection, like she had managed to regain her composure for the moment. “Well, about the same as any other twins, I suppose.”

 _Time to pull the thread, and let it unravel._ “But they’re running away from home…together? Do you think your son, uh, ‘Dipper’ knows about Mabel’s condition? Would the child’s father know?”

Both parents looked at each other, little nods and tiny shakes of heads in a little silent communication through the air of the sergeant’s office. Derek spoke, squeaking out an awkward “Uh, maybe? We’re…we’re not a hundred-percent sure.” _Mr. Pines, I hope for the sake of your financial future that you don’t play poker. Your son knew about this before you two did, and furthermore, you have a pretty damn good idea of who the father is too._

_So do I, unfortunately._

The sergeant sighed, putting her elbows on the desk as she laced her fingers together. She took a deep breath, steeling herself as she prepared to make the leap in case her instincts had guided her astray; it was uncommon, to be sure, but an unpleasant surprise every time.

“Derek, Margaret, I know this is not going to be easy to hear nor to ask, but…is Dipper, the father?”

Both parents looked like they had been punched, and in a meek voice Derek said “I…damn it, yes. Probably? Possibly. They’ve been together for, uh, for a while now we think.”

Margaret’s eyes had started tearing up again, and to no-one in particular she sobbed out “We thought we could leave it alone, that it was a phase or something. They’re just _kids_ , for god’s sake, they’re just…kids.” She sat back, looking distant and defeated. The sergeant knew better than to push her for answers right now, and instead turned to Derek.

“Mr. Pines, I know you have a lot of concerns regarding this-this relationship, but my first and foremost priority is to make sure a pair of siblings, both minors, are safe and in their parent’s custody. Only _after_ we get that sorted out will we touch on the rest of this. Understood?”

He nodded, but she wanted to get through the cloak of defeat he had taken on. “Mr. Pines, I need you to look at me. I said, is all of that understood?”

Her voice was calm yet firm, and Derek looked up, nodding before saying “Y-yes, I understand.”

“Good. Now, I need a list of all relatives they’ve had contact with in the last five years, and we’ll start building our leads to investigate from there. Do they have any relatives or cities they particularly prefer to visit?”

 

The remainder of the interview took another hour and a half, but by the time she excused the Pines out, reassuring them that their children would be found safe, there was just a single name circled in the bottom-center of the page of scribbled notes.

_“GRAVITY FALLS.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt: "The twins find out 5 months too late that they have joined their family's long line of teenage pregancies. Not knowing what to do, they fled to gravity falls, not realizing that everyone there knows them. And while pacifica giving them a place to stay and being understanding of their situation is nice, their parents soon find out about their whereabouts... and their situation."


	5. Escape from Reality

It had only been a kiss, but it had been enough. Dipper had seen their mom’s face, her expression at seeing the twins with mouths locked in passion, hands where hands probably shouldn’t be on platonic siblings. She’d stammered something, half an apology, half a noise of shock before stumbling back to downstairs as Dipper and Mabel disengaged from each other.

The twins had heard her dialing on the landline, a soft sob echoing down the hall as Mabel clung to Dipper. He knew her naked fear reflected his own, and they sat back on the bed, passions chilled from shock. After a time, Mabel cleared her throat, haltingly saying “D-d’you think they’ll…Dipper, what do you think they’ll _do?”_

He gave her a bit of a reassuring smile, before her look of worried skepticism caused his false confidence to crumble. He had _no idea,_ but their parents were fairly strict, unyielding in their beliefs and seemingly hyperaware of the opinions and goings-on of all of their neighbors and family members. Dipper couldn’t imagine a scenario where they would be _okay_ with what he and Mabel had together, and all manner of possibilities for unpleasant and assuredly _permanent_ separation had cropped up in his mind.

On top of all of that, a little quiet worry invaded his basal fearmongering, asking _“Is it possible to put kids up for adoption, even as sixteen-year-olds? You don’t have anywhere to go, not after what they would be telling everyone, and on top of that you have no money either. Not outside of your soon-to-be-evaporating allowance and that gas station attendant position last winter.”_

Mabel had gone quiet when she saw Dipper’s face, distant and smooth like she did when she was thinking something through, before giving him a little smile, a kiss on the cheek that lingered for a moment as she whispered “I-I’ll be right back, Dip.”

He nodded, and she crept down the hallway to the bathroom. She was in there for a moment,a dn Dipper heard the mirror cabinet open and the rattle of a bottle before she was coming back, the white container clenched in her tight-knuckled hand. She held out the bottle, and Dipper quickly scanned his eyes over the purple label:

_“Zolpidem PM (Compare to Ambien)”_

His eyes widened as Mabel smiled, a forced and sad expression as she dug around in the drawer of her desk and pulled out a trio of SmileDip packets their parents must have missed in their last contraband sweep.

“Mabel, _what?_ No, _no_ way. There…there’s got to be another way.” Even as he said it, he could feel the words in his mouth felt false, and Mabel again looked him over with the critical eye that caused his exaggerations to crumble.

“I mean, that’s…that’s not a good idea, even if-even if it does, I mean if we are…” He met her eyes and sighed, feeling his shoulders shake a little as Mabel pulled him into a hug.

“Dipper…” she murmured, almost breathily into his hair. “I’m…I’m _afraid,_ Dipper. Of being alone, without you, of being separated and forced to live away from you, without us being together. I…Dip, I don’t think life would be worth going on without you in it.”

He gaped, then clenched his eyes shut, pulling her close. “Mabel, that’s… _no._ Mabes, we-we could always get back together, find each other. I mean, they can only trap us for a year or two, and then we’re free and adults and…and we could run away together, and be together forever. We’d be together….forever, Mabel.” He said the last sentence slowly, enjoying the little shiver of happy warmth it was offering to offset his worried plethora of fears.

Against him, Mabel just sighed and shook her head. “Dipper, this isn’t _allowed._ Even if we get out and away from mom and dad, where do we go? Where can we go, that this isn’t something that would get us landed in jail, get us separated forever?” She pulled back to look him sternly in the eyes. “And I mean the _real_ forever, Dipper. I don’t want for one or both of us to be in jail because of the other.”

The bottle in her hands rattled softly as she turned to look at it. Softly, she said “There’s only one real way for us to be _together_ forever, Dip, and not always be looking over our shoulders that someone’s going to come and smash it all at any moment.”

She gently ripped open a packet of SmileDip, wetting a finger and dipping it in before licking it off. She hummed appreciatively, before doing it again and proffering the sugared finger to her brother. He sighed, attempting to open his mouth to protest before she stuck it in with a giggle. Despite himself, Dipper smiled, before growing stern again as she whispered “It’ll just taste like that, Dip. _Same great taste, and calorie free!”_ she said, echoing the jingle from the short-lived and unsuccessful SmileDrink soda line.

Still smiling and humming a song under her breath, Mabel began to shake the blue pills into the powder, crushing them in the bag between her fingers as best as she could. Dipper looked on helplessly, before choking out “ _Mabel!”_ and interjecting his hand over the top of the candy and drug powder she was holding. Mabel stopped what she was doing to look at him, and rather than annoyance, Dipper could see her eyes were rimming with tears.

“Dipper _please,_ let me do this. Let me at least do _this.”_ Her hand shook as she went to continue the transfer from the bottle to packet, but Dipper grabbed her wrists, gently but firmly as she tried to tug them away.

“Mabel, _listen._ I know it’s, that we-” He cut off with a choking and strangled sob, and she stopped struggling to look at him. “I _know_ that everything is scary as hell, and I don’t know what life will be like for us in the future. Mabel, I _want_ to spend the rest of my life with you-,” he said, ducking his finger under her chin as he continued, “-just like we talked about.” She gave him a little smile.

“But this isn’t the way to go. I _want_ to die next to you, but I want to do it when we’re old and grey and fleecing tourists like our Grunkles were, okay?” She let out a little chuckle as he smiled and, holding her hand, helped her seal the bag with her closed fist. “Not here in your bedroom when we still have so much life to live, _together._ Okay?”

She nodded, giving the bag of SmileDip and crushed sleeping pills one final glance before throwing it back into the corner of her desk drawer it had been procured from. Mabel took a few long breaths before looking back at her brother, and saying “So…what now? Where do we go?”

Dipper looked around the room, fishing in his pocket as he pulled out the jingling key ring for his truck. “I’ve got about four hundred bucks left from that part-time job; that should be enough for gas for us to get there.”

Mabel cocked her head, and Dipper grinned in the dark room and pointed. As soon as her eyes adjusted, she saw what he was pointing at, gasping a little in apprehensive excitement as he looked at the old post card and said “We never did get to see the Mystery Shop; Want to go on that road trip to New Jersey a bit sooner than we had planned?”

Nodding frantically, Mabel turned and practically dove into Dipper’s arms, hugging him tight as she whispered “I-I-I love you, Dip. Seriously, I love the snot out of you.” After a long moment, she said quietly “ _Thank_ you. I just-it was just so dark, and it seemed like everything we had ahead of us got snuffed out, and I just thought we couldn’t-”

She stopped when Dipper hugged her back close against him, drawing a little sob of relief from his twin. “It’s ok, Mabes. I understand. We’re not getting separated, ok? _Never,_ and that’s a promise.” He leaned back and gave her a grin.

“Now, make sure to pack your stuff. We’ve got a long trip ahead of us, and the sooner we leave, the sooner we’re sitting safe in Glass Shard Beach.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the prompt: "Twins get caught, and very briefly consider suicide before running away together."


	6. Rain Dreams

It was when it rained that Pacifica was truly alone. When she was out in the garden, surrounded by the drip of rain, the rumble of distant thunder, the wind hissing through the branches in the neatly-trimmed trees overhead. Alone, with her thoughts as the wet chill began to permeate her faded llama-print sweater.

Her parents never dared come out in the rain, for fear it would devastate their carefully-coiffed hair and painstakingly-arranged clothing ensembles. It repelled them, sent them scurrying back indoors to the mansion they now called home.

Looking up, Pacifica could catch a glimpse of their old fortress on the hill they used to live on. McGucket hosted a party every few months, and Pacifica always had to sneak out to attend them. The loss of a significant portion of their fortune had made Preston even more defensive of their remaining holdings, and jealous of the old man who happened to purchase their old estate; he had strictly forbid Pacifica from even interacting with him in town, and so attending the modest-yet-popular parties was of course completely out of the question.

Of course, the last party had been almost half a year back. Old Man McGucket had taken ill with some manner of cold, and while his son Tate had announced a week back that the prognosis was good, age still meant a slow and painstaking recovery. The next party probably wouldn’t be until late summer.

_When the Pines return._

It was true for the entire family now: The “Grunkles” now traveled the world on a boat, apparently, and returned to anchor in Newport on the coast for just the month or two that Dipper and Mabel returned each summer. It was a brief visit, as it always was for the summers that followed that first one.

_And getting briefer. It almost seems like they don’t want to come anymore, like they want to stay in their lives in Piedmont and give Gravity Falls a wide berth._

She felt a hot tear on her cheek mix with the rain, and gritted her teeth in a wry smile.

 _Of course, as soon as I hit 18, I’m doing the same thing._ Preston had high hopes that Pacifica would stay and continue the real estate near-monopoly he had established in the sleepy town, but she couldn’t stay.

_Not after what had happened, and the memories that were here to stay._

The official stance of the town was the genial “ _Never mind all that!”_ , but that didn’t erase what Pacifica had already seen, had already experienced. Her father had his face turned inside-out in a rictus of horror, and the entire town had been changed, devastated in an apocalypse that even to this day, years later, she didn’t fully understand.

_And those two were at the epicenter the whole time._

It was no wonder the twins came less and less to Gravity Falls. What they must have seen, what they must have gone through… It was enough to change a person, and she knew that for every memory she had of the events of that summer that made her shiver in fear, a hundred more must be weighing on the minds of the Pines twins.

It weighed on Pacifica too, which was why she was standing out here in the rain. She didn’t bother to look back to see if her parents would be in the windows, watching her or fearing she’d catch a cold. Preston was likely upstairs, either watching a sports game or arguing with their accountant on the phone, while Priscilla was probably applying makeup or using her personal tanning bed.

Sometimes they would come bother her, asking her to come inside, to pay heed as they explained another tax loophole or showed her a vapid face in a tacky-yet-obscenely-expensive dress in some magazine. That was why she loved the rain, as it kept them at bay, and discouraged anything but the most life-threatening emergencies from compelling them to bother her.

Still, though, sitting on that little swing in the arbor, wide enough for a person on either side, she felt alone. While Pacifica was privately glad her parents hadn’t had another sibling to ruin, Pacifica often wished she had someone to talk to, someone approximately her own age and with similar concerns about the world. Her parents were obsessed with money and appearances, but Pacifica just wanted someone to talk to, to laugh with.

For years, she had no-one. And then that fateful summer came and went.

_And I still have no-one._

That wasn’t strictly true; Mabel and Dipper did come and visit, inviting her to the Mystery Shack when they were in town, but it wasn’t the same. That was two, maybe three months in the entire year, and besides that brief window, she got cold glares at worst and passive neutrality at best. Her parents had literally bet on the town being in shambles from the manipulations of a reality-obsessed hunk of living geometry, and that wasn’t something people forgot or forgave easily even with the town’s new cheery motto.

She leaned back, feeling the cold water drip from the wood arbor for a while, humming a little tuneless song to herself, and letting her mind wander. It roamed from that summer, to the few-yet-memorable meetings with the twins since then, and finally their latest visit: A surprise vacation this last winter.

They had made snowmen, laughed and fought an epic snowball war, but the best part was their smiles.

 _If I could bottle and store those for a rainy day, I’d be richer than my father and without a penny to my name._ The thought gave her a little smile. _If we lived closer, that could be every day. Maybe if they bought the Shack from Soos, and ran it themselves._

A crack of lighting pealed through the sky as she began to hum the tune from Mabel’s old music box. _Heck, what if I lived with them; Screw father and mother and everything I hate that they wanted me to be. We could just live together, showing weird stuff to tourists and not worrying about what others expected us to be or do._

A wry coughing chuckle shakes her thin frame. _Yeah, sure, those two, the inseparable Pines, would be willing to have a third wheel as a wannabe sibling. While you’re at it, Paxy, why not wish for yet another pony?_

She sat in the swing, hunched over, but a brief flare of light caused her to look up, squinting. The setting sun had cast a brilliant bloody orange-crimson across the sky behind her, reflecting off of some windows in front of her and making her eyes water involuntarily.

The breathtaking sight sparked something in her chest. _Well, yeah, they might be ok with it. I mean, I was an insufferable jerk to them the whole first summer and they still trusted me with their lives by the end,_ she thought, unconsciously fingering the worn fluffy llama sweater sleeve. _Maybe they would take me in, hug me close,_ and she wrapped her arms around herself, _squeezing tight, and say “We love you Paxy”_

The setting sun faded, the greying sky growing cold and excessively damp as another wave of rain began to pelt down even harder than before.

Sitting on the swing, arms still encircling her chest, Pacifica sighed sadly. _Yeah, that’d be nice._

_Maybe one day it would even be true._

She chuckled, doing so to try and forestall the crying she could tell was bubbling up.

_God knows I’d do anything for that to actually be true. But that’s never going to happen._

 

* * *

 

Deep in the woods, under the boughs of damp and drooping cedars, between a pair of thick clusters of ferns and moss-covered stumps of trees long past, is a shape in stone.

It is unmoving, fixed in time and space immovably, and yet the only life anywhere close to it is a creeper of moss and ivy that has spiraled up the outstretched spindly arm.

In time with a peal of the thunder above, the stone cracked, and a sliver of yellow light shone for a second, before the darkness returned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to @mrdaxxonford for the prompt: “ Paz starts really feeling that only child syndrome; Lonely. So she kinda day dreams that Dipper is her brother and even starts hanging out with him or mabel like he’s her brother and she’s her sister. Eventually she decides that they could never want someone like her to be a part of anything they have. The twins embrace her and tell her they love her”


	7. The Test

_“We’re going to be parents.”_

Dipper had always planned on being a dad, as best as he could be, more present than his own but still instilling the same values as best as he could. Since he had discovered his feelings for his sister, and found the stars had aligned and blessed him with a sister who felt the same towards him, he had even hoped that they would have them together.

But this, this was a bit sooner than expected.

She had come over while Dipper was trying in vain to study for his fall midterm, practically prancing and bouncing with excitement. He had sighed, annoyed until the bombshell was dropped and the significance hit him like a brick. He sat there, mouth opening and closing like a dumbfounded fish for a minute, before he caught his voice and stammered “T-that-that’s _great,_ Mabel!”

It was surprise, but genuine excitement. Even as he felt his mind race a million miles a minute with what would need to be done, what preparations still had to be made in order to ensure that this whole pregnancy didn’t catch them any more off-guard than it already had.

It was then that he remembered something his dad had said a few years back, when Dipper had asked him about raising him and his sister. He had said _“Dipper, the biggest regret I ever had was never finishing off my degree. Of course, you and your sister are the best things to ever happen to your mom and me, but when life catches you up when you’re in college and beyond, don’t forget to keep your goals in mind. Having one doesn’t mean you can’t have the other; I wasn’t great at managing my time back then.”_  That had been followed by a reassuring pat on the back and questions regarding Dipper’s choices for college applications.

Dipper’s first half of this semester had been somewhat rough. Most of his classes had been outstanding, and his journalism classes were solid A’s, but he had struggled again and again in Egyptian History classes. Finally things had started to gel and make sense, but it had been slow going to get to that point, and he didn’t want to risk it any more than he had to.

He had said as much to Mabel in the week before her surprise announcement, but he was still relieved when, after an hour or so of breathy celebration, happy kisses, and breakneck planning, she had just nodded and smiled with understanding when he had to excuse himself to keep studying.

There would definitely be more words and hugs and joy exchanged, but in due time. The last thing he wanted to do was rush things and mess anything up; More than anything, Dipper wanted to make sure that he helped start the twins’ family right.

 

* * *

 

Mabel was bouncing with excitement in the doctor’s office. Dipper had insisted that they get the child genetically tested as soon as possible, citing all sorts of horror stories with incest mutations and inherited diseases filling Mabel’s mind with visions of their child inevitably looking like a half-goat monstrosity from some sort of horror film rather than a human child.

It had been months since that October when she had given Dipper the first news, and in the meantime he had slammed the classes out of the ballpark, while coming into his first Spring semester even stronger than that. Mabel had tried to keep up with her studies, and while her art classes still were going fine, her other general courses had suffered and dropped from solid B’s to low C’s. Dipper had insisted that she try and make sure she was at least passing her classes, and so far that wasn’t proving to be an impossibility.

_Give it another few months, though, and whoo boy it’ll get interesting quickly._

Dipper had done his normal exhaustively-thorough testing and reviewing for doctors for the testing of the baby; Mabel hadn’t understood why, until their first meeting with him before drawing the sample for the analysis.

 _“So, uh, ‘Dipper,’ you’ve said Mabel and you are consanguineous, correct?”_ Mabel had cocked her head like a puppy as Dipper blushed a little and nodded, and the doctor had just nodded, eyes glancing between the twins. Mabel realized that he knew about them, and that Dipper probably did so to forestall awkward questions later regarding two more-similar-than-normal parental sets of DNA.

That realization had let Mabel relax, and she had floated through the rest of the interview without a care in the world. Not having to put up her shield, her instinctive guard against anyone finding out their true relationship, was like basking in a room-temperature sauna. The doc had then taken the sample, and told Mabel the results would be ready in around a  week.

Mabel had nearly pounced into the room with the genetic counselor, and as they laid out a clean bill of health, Mabel couldn’t help but let out a little squeal of glee when she saw their child was going to be a girl. She would have loved either equally well, but nevertheless felt a little thrill of excitement upon seeing that in the report.

Overall the results had taken her day from an apprehensive “good” to an unmitigated “great,” and Mabel had just about dragged her brother out to the nicest restaurant in town to celebrate. They had some outstanding dishes, with Mabel as-always feeding Dipper her broccoli florets and instead stealing his bits of bacon and egg speck from the pasta dish he always picked.

It was a wonderful dinner, despite the cold March rains outside, and Mabel was already humming with excitement over getting to meet her daughter in just a few short months.

 

* * *

 

Roseanna and Gregory were devastated; The counselor had been apologetic, respectful, and helpful, but the condition they had outlined had meant that their little boy would have lived perhaps forty-eight hours at most, and much of that in significant pain. Already they had come to a sorrowful agreement with exchanged glances in those office chairs as the doctor looked on, but it still felt like a blow to the gut.

Rose could tell she had gone through most of the stages of grief in just a brief hour, not believing her own eyes, blaming her parents and grandparents before them for passing on shitty, defective genes, blaming herself for not keeping up on her multivitamins every morning without fail, and asking every question they could think of from the genetic counselor about what options they had.

Each question was met with a heavy sigh, and a few short and unhappy words.

So now she could tell she was at Depression, feeling the clenching invisible fist around her gut. Greg was still Bargaining, asking the doc about various hospitals around the world or if there might be any brand-new research that might be something they could try and pursue independently. Still, his specialty was marine ecology, and not microbiology, while Rose was following her father into inheriting his accounting firm with a degree to match; Neither of them knew what to do with that knowledge even if it had existed.

She put a calming hand on Greg’s arm as he began to raise his voice, and nodded thanks to the doctor before standing up to leave. He had nodded to her and Greg, before saying _“If you have any more questions, Mrs. Fines, you two can reach me through our office at most hours.”_ She had thanked him again, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, before following Greg to the car and going for a quiet, solemn evening at home that night.

 

* * *

 

In the white-and-black laboratory, in a shelf of a freezer filled with racks upon racks of tiny tubes, lay two vials. Their labels are handwritten; Uncommon, but not unique among the many otherwise-printed labels. After all, sometimes an empty printer cartridge wasn’t reordered soon enough, and sometime time dictates using the quickest method at hand in order to keep the laboratory running smoothly.

In this case, unfortunate happenstance and poor handwriting had placed the two nearly-identical vials together, to be categorized by the morning shift analyst. Names were entered into the spreadsheet, samples were run and analyzed, and printouts made for the counselor to use later. Unfortunate and heartfelt murmurs of sorrow are heard for one family as the printout displays row after row of red figures and letters in one area of the diagram.

The mistake is eventually discovered, but not until it is far too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on this prompt: "freshmen college twins are living together off campus (to "save money"), but are not "out" to anyone about their relationship. They made a mistake almost immediately, and Mabel is confirmed to be pregnant by Oct. What do they do?"


End file.
